A British high court last week upheld the conviction of a Scotswoman charged with practicing witchcraft. To jail for nine months, technically as a violator of a 1735 law forbidding "conjuration of the devil and evil spirits," went 46-year-old Mrs. Helen Duncan, a spiritual medium.
At her seven-day trial last April, a policeman testified that he attended a Duncan seance, tried to grab a ghost, instead caught Mrs. Duncan stuffing a white cloth down her bodice.
Ardent defense witnesses included the egocentric gossip columnist of the London Daily Herald, Hannen Swaffer, whose story was that he and...
To continue reading: or Log-In